Apps Of The Week: Audiobooks HQ, YouTube, Kuvva, Thetaboard, And GTA: Vice City

If you can pull yourself away from the Bloomberg interview with Tim Cook long enough, we here at Macgasm have another roundup of new apps. This week we have some media apps, a wallpaper generator that will make you the envy of the office (or the cafe), and a classic game gets an iPad release.

iPhone/iPod Touch: Audiobooks HQ

Though there are plenty of Audiobooks in the iTunes store, a cursory search will show you that they are more than a little expensive. Audiobooks HQ has a huge directory of public domain audiobooks via Libravox and actual produced audio plays of books via the Globe Radio Repository. I listened to the latter’s adaptation of Don Quixote and found it to be well performed with sound effects and a sizeable cast. Bookmarks and sleep timers are included as well.

iPad: You Tube

Heavy users of YouTube were dismayed when Apple removed the native YouTube app from iOS. Google brought out an iPhone app for the service, but it didn’t have the greatest look and feel on the iPad. Now YouTube has its own app, and like the iPhone app, it will open YouTube links from your browser or other apps. It handles subscriptions really well, which has become more important since YouTube started pushing channels of original content.

Mac: Kuvva

Wallpaper can become a dangerous addiction. Your computers can end up with gigabyte folders full of every off picture you can find from the oddest corners of the Internet. Kuvva seeks to relieve people of having to search for new and unique wallpapers and provide them with new wallpaper at a rate set up by the user (in a range of hourly to yearly). You can tweet to show off your new wallpaper and visit the artists’ sites.

WebApp: Thetaboard

For corporate project managers, there are a hundred different paid apps they can use to manage their projects, but of course they have a sizeable budget to afford four figure licenses. Metaboard is a free web app that gives a very visual project design process. It likely isn’t nearly as robust as MS Project or Clarity, but it can create simple workflows and assign team members to them.

The app is still in beta but you can play around with the demo and sign up for an account here.

Game of the Week: GTA: Vice City

Wide lapels, synth pop, boat chases, and touchscreen controls. If you missed out on the trio of GTA games that basically defined the PS2 era, five bucks will get you probably the best game in that series. Vice City added motorcycles, safe houses, and an all star voice cast to the successful GTA III formula to make a great game. This game is as unforgivingly difficult as the original, and is well worth the investment for either nostalgia’s sake or just to see what you missed out on the first time around.